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Optimal Choice in the Face of Risk: Decision Theory Meets Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Samir Okasha
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Abstract

The problem of how to make optimal choices in the face of risk (or uncertainty) arises in both economics/decision theory and also evolutionary biology; in the former, ‘optimal’ means utility maximizing, while in the latter it means fitness maximizing. This article explores the links, thematic and formal, between the economic and evolutionary theories of optimal choice in risky situations, with particular reference to the relationship between utility and fitness. It is argued that the link is strongest between evolution and ‘nonexpected’ utility theory, rather than traditional expected utility theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 83 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Ken Binmore, John McNamara, Jonathan Wright, Brian Skyrms, David Makinson, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Patrick Forber, Cedric Paternotte, and Jonathan Grose for discussion and comments and to two anonymous referees for constructive criticism. Research for this article was supported by grant H/F017502/1 from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.

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